


until the dawn

by kunimi



Series: zine pieces [3]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Ghosts, M/M, Spirits, Supernatural Elements, everyone but sakusa is some sort of supernatural entity, haunted forest, oikawa and atsumu are only in it for a bit, sakusa and kuroo are the two main characters/central dynamic, there are ghosts and demons and banshees and shadowbeasts and fox-boys etc, there are other characters too but cameos. unnamed too. let's play spot the character, this isn't v romantic but there is certainly. Leaning into it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:35:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28361025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kunimi/pseuds/kunimi
Summary: “You’re not—” Kiyoomi starts, then bites his tongue.Human, he’d been about to say, but he doesn’t think that’s true. The boy looks human. He seems human, sounds human,feelshuman, in that indistinct, indescribable way anything feels like itself.What he doesn’t seem is alive, which is a much harder thing to say.sakusa kiyoomi does not believe in ghost stories; he never has. in some other parts of the world, that wouldn't be a problem.sakanoshita forest is not some other part of the world.
Relationships: Kuroo Tetsurou/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Series: zine pieces [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2059221
Comments: 7
Kudos: 35
Collections: HQween- A Haikyuu Halloween Zine





	until the dawn

**Author's Note:**

> hello! this was my third and final piece from the hqween zine! this was for the spookier section (compared to the light hearted section _teamwork makes the dream work_ is from) – i wouldn't describe it as scary, but every featured character except for sakusa belongs to the spirit realm in some way or another. think spirits and banshees and demons, ghosts and fox-boys and shadow-beasts
> 
> there is no mcd in narrative, but one of the characters is a ghost, and there is occasional reference to his death (absolutely not explicit)

Everyone knows that this is the night where the lost things roam the earth once more.

Kiyoomi does not believe in ghost stories. He never has. Not in the sense of an active disbelief; more that he dedicates himself to very little, and holding faith in things that go bump in the night has never been high on his list of priorities.

Maybe it should have been.

Perhaps in some other parts of the world, ghost stories remain simply that: stories, passed on by teenagers with wicked grins, or older siblings on nights like this. 

Sakanoshita Forest is not some other part of the world.

Kiyoomi steps forward, and a branch snaps beneath his foot. The wind whistles through the trees, and he flinches, immediately stilling. He holds his breath for a second, two, three, then exhales; quietly, efficiently, as if he can exist less obtrusively in this space made for lost and lonely creatures if he doesn’t make a sound. He still does not believe in ghost stories, as a whole, but his mind continues to replay the sight of that silver-haired creature with fangs prowling through the shadows, and the blood-curdling shriek it had let out. The way the shadows had wrapped themselves around its body, holding it tightly as the stars had blinked out of the sky above them, and that spindly-fingered thing with long, red spikes had stalked forward, eyes gleaming. The eerie song it had sung, of breaking hearts, as if that was something as easy and tangible as the branch that snapped beneath Kiyoomi’s foot.

“You picked a hell of a night to go wandering,” a voice says, and Kiyoomi’s head whips to the side, eyes searching for the source of the noise. He finds a boy about his age leaning against one of the elms. His hair is the same colour as the shadows that Kiyoomi had seen earlier, but instead of smooth and curling, it’s wild and unruly, some of it falling in front of his right eye, the rest sprawling around in tufts around his head. The eye that Kiyoomi can see is hazel and sly, but there’s a guarded edge to it, like a drawbridge that’s still deciding whether it wants to be lowered.

“I didn’t _mean_ to get stuck in this forest,” Kiyoomi snaps back, glaring at the stranger. He really hadn’t. It had been darker than usual as he’d walked home, and the edge of the path seemed to bleed into the shadows, in a way that didn’t make sense to his eyes. It’s the only explanation he has for how it eventually disappeared from beneath his feet, and how he found soil and twigs underneath his sneakers instead.

The other boy looks frozen, suddenly, although Kiyoomi doesn’t think he was moving before. It’s something in the way his expression looks, he thinks; caught, like he’s remembering something painful. Like an animal in a trap. All of a sudden, it melts away, and action resumes. His shoulders ease, and he looks at Kiyoomi, cocking his head as he does, as if he’s taking Kiyoomi’s measure.

“C’mon,” he says, jerking his head. Kiyoomi raises his eyebrow and scoffs. The other boy makes an impatient noise. “Do you want to be stuck in here forever or not?” he demands. “Come _on_.”

It’s a phrase. He knows it is. ‘Stuck in here forever’ is a familiar piece of hyperbole; as Komori Motoya’s cousin, Kiyoomi is familiar with it. But something about it in the boy’s mouth makes Kiyoomi shiver; something about it feels a little more ominous, like it rings a little more true. Maybe that’s why he hesitates only for a moment longer before he takes a decisive step towards the boy, then another, and another, until he is right by his side.

It’s then that he notices that the boy’s skin is silvery in the moonlight.

He frowns.

There’s no moonlight peeking through the trees where they are. There’s some behind Kiyoomi, in that space between where Kiyoomi had been standing when he’d first caught the boy’s attention and where he is now, but there’s no moonlight right here. And yet the boy’s skin still has a silvery sheen to it.

The boy notices his gaze—feels the weight of it, maybe—and lets out a chuckle. It does not sound amused. It sounds self-conscious in a way Kiyoomi has never been, and pained in a way Kiyoomi has never heard.

“You noticed, huh?” he asks, and Kiyoomi shrugs. He has, he supposes, but he doesn’t know _what_ he’s noticed. The boy exhales a sigh, then raises his arm.

Kiyoomi blinks, then blinks some more. It makes no difference. He can still see through his arm, ever so slightly. It’s not transparent, exactly, because it has a solid shape, and is very clearly _there_ , very clearly in the way, very clearly obscuring view of what’s behind it, but it’s translucent. Like looking through a hazy pane of glass. Very much not what looking at Kiyoomi’s own arm is like, flesh and bone and sinew, skin stark and impenetrable against the world around it.

He takes a step back, and the boy reaches his hand out towards him.

“Wait,” he says. “I wasn’t tricking you. I’ll help you get out.”

“You’re not—” Kiyoomi starts, then bites his tongue. _Human_ , he’d been about to say, but he doesn’t think that’s true. The boy looks human. He seems human, sounds human, _feels_ human, in that indistinct, indescribable way anything feels like itself.

What he doesn’t seem is alive, which is a much harder thing to say.

The boy’s expression is wry, like he knows what Kiyoomi is thinking. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he says.

There’s a lot of questions Kiyoomi could ask. Should ask. _Why should I trust you? What are you? Who are you? What’s happening here?_

Instead, he takes a breath. “What happened to you?” he asks. Internally, he can see Motoya’s exasperated expression at his rudeness— _Oh my God, Kiyoomi, you can’t just ask someone why they’re not alive anymore_ —but he can’t care about that, not when this boy is in front of him, changing everything he understands about the world.

The boy tilts his head, giving him a funny look, like the question caught him off-guard. It probably did, Kiyoomi realises.

“I didn’t get out in time,” he says after a moment.

It takes a second, and then that answer slots into Kiyoomi’s chest. _Oh_.

✧

When Kiyoomi was young, his grandmother had spent her time telling him stories. She told him that things of power always happened in threes and sevens, that silk was the only fabric that could be trusted to hold a secret, and that small truths freely given were the oldest sort of magic in the world.

As the boy guides him through the forest, he gives Kiyoomi three truths about himself.

His name is Kuroo Tetsurou, he has been twenty for three years now, and he used to be afraid of the dark.

They are not a full story, but they are the ragged pieces of one, enough that Kiyoomi can knit together a patchwork tapestry in his head. The result is not entirely pleasant, and something in his chest twists.

“I’m twenty-two,” Kiyoomi offers, for lack of anything else, as he ducks beneath a branch that Kuroo passes right through. Moments later, his brow furrows as he watches Kuroo duck beneath a different branch. “Why did you duck that one? You’re a ghost,” he says frankly.

Kuroo gives him an incredulous look. “You’re very direct,” he says, but it doesn’t sound like an insult. “It’s thicker than the last,” he explains. “It takes a little more—I don’t know. Energy? Substance? Whatever I’m made of. It takes a bit more out of me to pass through larger things. Normally I wouldn’t care too much, but if we’re going to make it through to the dawn, I should be careful.”

Kiyoomi shivers at the thought. 

“I’m not sure I am a ghost, you know,” Kuroo says after a moment. His tone is thoughtful, almost sad. Melancholic, maybe. “Ghosts are meant to move on, I think. But I don’t have unfinished business. I’m just a spirit of the forest now.”

Kiyoomi doesn’t know what to say to that. He’s never been any good at comforting, even when there was any comforting able to be done, and there isn’t, not in this case.

“What do you do the rest of the year?” he asks. Kuroo’s eyes immediately darken, dim like shadow, and Kiyoomi regrets it.

“Nothing,” Kuroo says. “Everyone waits in their corner of the spirit realm until we can walk again.” His lips twist into something that would be a smile if it wasn’t so sad, so cruel. “It’s worse for the others. The twins most of all.”

Kiyoomi doesn’t think he wants to know, so he doesn’t ask. Kuroo doesn’t elaborate.

They’ve been walking for a while by the time it happens. The _scream_. Kiyoomi doesn’t even know if he can call it that. It’s more like a wail, maybe—something earth-shaking and endless, wreaking havoc all around him.

Kiyoomi immediately falls to his knees. He can’t even think about how dirty the ground is, about everything that lives in the earth, about all the feet that have tread here before him, because the noise isn’t stopping, it’s endless, and it’s so full of pain, of _anguish_ , he can’t breathe he can’t _breathe_ —

 _“Akaashi!”_ he hears Kuroo’s voice cut through the noise, a whip cracking through the endless, bleeding wall of sound. “Akaashi, shut up, I swear to God—”

For a second, there is silence. It feels too empty in the forest now, ringing in Kiyoomi’s ears, in the cavernous space around him. He’s barely aware of his fingers pressed to his ears, his body curled into itself, the way his entire self has braced for impact.

“Kuroo-san?” a voice asks, hoarse.

“Hey,” Kuroo says, sighing in relief. “Hey, buddy, yeah, it’s me.”

“Have you found him?” the voice asks, and the hope in it wrenches something loose in Kiyoomi’s chest, something he didn’t even know was there.

Kuroo hesitates, and that’s clearly all the answer the voice needs. The wail starts again. Kiyoomi feels like he’s choking on sobs that are rising from someone else’s throat, and it’s an awful, invasive feeling. He feels wrung out, exposed, stretched to dry, all from these secondhand emotions that seem to be seeping into his skin from sound alone, and he curls even tighter in on himself in a desperate attempt to shield himself.

_“Enough.”_

The sound stops again, but it’s different this time. It doesn’t feel as empty, as awful, like the aftermath of a war. Kiyoomi manages to tilt his head, looking up to seek out Kuroo.

He finds him blazing with something silver, but not bright—like muted moonlight, emanating from every inch of him. His eyes are the same, though; hazel and sharp, looking at the screaming voice—Akaashi—firmly, but with no end of soft sadness. Kiyoomi lets his eyes flick to Kuroo’s hands, and in their grasp he is shocked to find someone who looks like a boy. Their ears are pointed, and their cheekbones too sharp, with almost hollow cheeks beneath the blade-like bones jutting out from beneath moon-silver eyes, but their long sprawling hair looks as dark and soft as Kiyoomi’s, and they look smaller than Kuroo. 

“Keiji, we’ll find him next year, okay?” Kuroo promises gently. “If you can’t find him by dawn, meet me here next year. The white elm by your pond. We’ll find him together.”

“That’s what you said last year,” Akaashi says. Their speech is too stilted to sound angry, their voice too exhausted, but their eyes flash with something that makes Kiyoomi’s skin crawl.

“I know,” Kuroo admits, sounding defeated. “I know. But, well—” he glances at Kiyoomi, then back at Akaashi. “I found someone who needed to be guided through,” he says carefully. Akaashi’s eyes widen. “So. I had to, you know?”

Akaashi studies him for a long moment, then glances behind him at Kiyoomi. It’s unsettling, being fixed with those eyes, but Kiyoomi does not flinch. He stares coolly back. Something glimmers on Akaashi’s face—not a smile, because such an expression is almost unfathomable on a face that seems built for such sadness, but something less harsh.

“Good luck, Kuroo-san,” Akaashi says formally. It feels grave in their mouth, and Kuroo bows his head.

“You too, Akaashi. I hope you find him. But I’ll meet you here next year anyway,” he says, before squeezing their arm one last time. He reaches behind him, gesturing at Kiyoomi, and Kiyoomi goes to take his hand without thinking. It’s a primal instinct, something which is older than almost anything else Kiyoomi can remember, older than any thoughts he has himself: when you are lost and alone, and someone reaches out a hand, you take it.

It has been many years since he has willingly touched someone else, whether by instinct or genuine desire. He doesn’t know how to feel about the fact that his hand just passes through Kuroo’s—that even if he wanted to touch him, he couldn’t.

Kuroo doesn’t notice, still looking ahead, so Kiyoomi pushes aside that thought for now, nodding at Akaashi and following Kuroo away from the pond.

“Are you okay?” Kuroo finally asks, his voice low and furtive.

Kiyoomi glances at him sidelong, surprised. “Yeah,” he says, then he considers. “Yes,” he reiterates. “It was—exhausting,” he admits, “and unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, but I’m okay now.”

Kuroo exhales. “Good,” he says. “I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to get them to back down,” he admits. “Akaashi’s pretty powerful. They’re a banshee,” he explains. He weaves between some rocks, Kiyoomi carefully stepping where he indicates. “Banshees are spirits of death, really, but they’re associated with grief and tragedy and stuff—I dunno all the legends, something about family members dying, but whatever it is, Akaashi can like… sense death. And dying.” There’s a beat, two, three, then he adds, too casually, “Akaashi found me.”

Kiyoomi has _no_ idea what to do with that. He should probably offer his condolences, or maybe suggest something polite about Akaashi for their services. Instead, he asks: “Is that why you promised to help them?”

“Kinda—I would have anyway. They’re looking for Bokuto, who—” Kuroo hesitates. “Pretty sure he’s alive. So I dunno if they’ll ever find him—chances are low, unless Bokuto knows they’re looking, and where to come, and _wants_ to come, but, well, I don’t have anyone I want to look for. And I should help someone, I think.”

“That’s very generous,” Kiyoomi says, frowning.

Kuroo notices. “What?”

“You’ve only been here a few years,” Kiyoomi says bluntly. “I doubt there’s nobody you want to look for.”

Kuroo deflates. “I—well. I thought I might, when I was helping Akaashi, but. It’s fine.”

Kiyoomi turns that over in his mind, and comes up with the only truth he has left to find: Kuroo is giving up his one night a year to roam the earth, to find anyone he still can, to help Kiyoomi get out of this forest. It clutches at his chest. This is beyond uncommon consideration, he thinks—this is a kindness that will always be impossible to repay, to scrub from his skin, if he ever makes it out of here.

Kuroo Tetsurou will always live under his skin, embedded into every inch of him, if he survives this. Kiyoomi can’t decide what to do with that.

Suddenly, Kuroo stills. Kiyoomi glances at him, and Kuroo raises a finger to his lips, silencing him.

“Oh, _Tobio-chaaaaaaaan_ ,” a voice sing-songs. “Where are youuuuu?”

For the first time, Kuroo looks legitimately frightened. Kiyoomi feels his heart racing in his chest. He wishes he could curl his finger around Kuroo’s. He thinks he’d even take the skin-on-skin contact at this point, if it meant he could have the comfort of what he imagines would be a solid, steady warmth.

But Kuroo isn’t alive anymore, and Kiyoomi might end up the same way, going off the look on Kuroo’s face, unless they can figure something out quickly.

“We don’t want to get involved,” Kuroo breathes. “Oikawa is a demon. As in, literally a demon, horns and all. And Kageyama—Tobio-chan—is a shadow-beast. Trust me. We do _not_ want to be anywhere near either of them.”

And Kiyoomi does trust him. Both with this, and more generally. It’s unexpected and unfamiliar, because he does not trust easily, but this entire night has been, hasn’t it?

Kuroo’s expression changes, shifting strangely, twisting in distress. A moment later, Kiyoomi sees why.

 _“‘Samu,”_ a fox-boy cries out, sobbing pitifully. “‘Samu, where are you?”

“Fuck,” Kuroo murmurs. “Atsumu, not _now_ , not _here_ …”

Kiyoomi thinks back to earlier. _The twins most of all_. Something lurches unpleasantly in his gut.

“Atsumu-kun!” Oikawa calls out in delight. Kiyoomi sees him for the first time and blanches; he’s at least seven feet tall, with horns and red smoke swirling around his legs.

“I don’t want you,” Atsumu says, looking stubborn. “I want _‘Samu_.”

Oikawa merely grins, and Kuroo’s face sets. He looks at Kiyoomi, expression still, but gaze burning something fierce.

“Run towards the tree line, by those boulders,” he says furtively, flicking his head to indicate where he means. “Keep going until you find the giant red oak. There might be an eagle there, but that’s okay, he’ll look out for you. Doesn’t matter. Stay there, out of sight. I’ll come for you.”

Kiyoomi stares at him, speechless.

“I _promise_ I’ll come,” Kuroo says. He looks out towards where he’d indicated. “We’re not far now.” He looks Kiyoomi in the eyes. “I told you I’d help you, and I will. Do you trust me?”

Kiyoomi knows the answer to this, as much as it scares him, especially right now. He nods.

Kuroo gives him a brilliant smile. “I’ll see you soon,” he says. “Now. _Run.”_

So he does, with one last look at Kuroo: fierce and determined, striding out into the clearing where a demon taunts a fox-boy. Kiyoomi tears his eyes away. There is nothing left for him to see there. Nothing useful.

✧

He’s been standing under the watchful gaze of an eagle for at least forty minutes when they arrive. Atsumu looks ragged and distressed; Kuroo, tired in a way that seems like it seeps into his bones.

But he smiles at Kiyoomi when he sees him, and something in Kiyoomi’s chest settles at the sight. Relief, maybe.

“You look like shit,” he says, and Kuroo laughs. It’s the first time Kiyoomi has heard it. He’s distinctly aware that if all goes to plan, it’ll likely be the last.

“Charmer,” Kuroo says, and grins. “C’mon. It’s not too far now. Just got to get there, or to the dawn—whichever comes first.”

As they walk onward to the dawn, and the world of the living, Kiyoomi looks at Kuroo’s fingers, thinks about how he can’t catch them even if he wants to. Thinks that there are worse people to have live under your skin forever.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/kurokenns)
> 
> you can find some of the other fics from the zine in the ao3 collection, and sfw art from the zine has been rt'd to the hqween twt!
> 
> also there were at least three other hq characters in there who weren't named, but i'm curious if anyone spotted them


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